Use Instagram's Collections Feature To Save Interesting Posts

Last year Instagram introduced Collections, a way to organise your pictures within the app into different curated groups. It's a feature that's been around for roughly a year now, but it's one that most people don't realise is even there.

If you use Instagram even moderately regularly, the feature can be pretty useful for saving posts that you think are interesting so you can find them later without scrolling endlessly through your feed.

To use it you just tap on the bookmark image at the bottom right of the pic and then select "Save to Collection" when it appears over the image. From there you'll be prompted to create a new Collection or to add the image to one you already have.

The key for this to work is to keep things organised while you save pictures rather than just throwing them all in a single folder.

While a general folder is essentially good for no one (and the chances of you going back to check it out are pretty much zero), organising pictures into different buckets as you save them can actually be a pretty useful practice and save you time when you do want to find those awesome Instagram posts later on. Here are a few ideas for ways to take advantage of the feature:

Restaurants to Try

If your friend is having a lobster dinner right now that you wish was in your face, add it to your restaurants to try folder. Later on when you're trying to figure out where to eat or what to cook for dinner, scroll through your collection of food pics for a little inspiration.

I actually tend to do this more for food I want to try and cook than places I want to physically go and eat. For instance, a few weeks ago a friend of mine posted a delicious-looking gnocchi from some fancy Italian place in New York. Since I live in San Francisco that would be a hell of a commute for dinner, but after seeing the pic and doing a few internet searches for recipes I was on my way to a delicious dinner that I probably wouldn't have come up with out of the blue on my own if I hadn't seen the pic.

Places to Travel

Nothing inspires people to post pictures to Instagram like going on a beautiful holiday - a beautiful holiday you wish you were on instead. Save the pictures of sandy beaches and picturesque mountains to a "Places to Travel" folder. Even better, if your friends are currently travelling in a specific country you know you want to visit (or already have plans to visit) then create location-specific collections for each destination.

For instance, my boyfriend and I are planning to travel to Italy and France this spring. It's a trip we've been planning since last year, and our plans started with just basic countries in mind. Over the past year as friends have travelled to those locations, I've saved things that looked interesting. Now instead of saying, "Oh, I saw this thing on Jake's Instagram that looked cool," or trying to remember whether something was posted by Jake or John or Julie, I can just pull up my handy Italy folder and instantly find the post I'm looking for.

Pet/Baby Pics

If you have a pet or a baby, or your sibling just acquired a pet or had a baby, then people are going to expect you to have pictures. Create a collection of all the best pictures from that birthday party/holiday gathering and then show people that when they ask rather than digging through the hopeless abyss that is the camera roll in your phone.

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